Part 5 (1/2)
When you come, I am going to take you over to Naples to see an octopus. I know he was once a faithless lover, and has been changed into a many-armed, flesh-colored monster by a water-siren whom he failed to adore properly. Here he is, now, doomed to move forever in a house of gla.s.s where humans come and point their finger at him.
So beware! Such is the wrath of--sirens.
At night we go out on the balcony to listen to some gay Neapolitan songs sung by a handsome, dark-eyed fellow. He looks like the black and frowzy-headed Peppi. Aunt threw him a handful of lire for that reason, I believe. Then we watch the brightly-dressed peasants dance the tarantella--I have bought some castenets, so when you get here, I'll dance for you!
You write of a picnic at Frascati. Was it as nice as ours?--when you and round-faced Pan went, and the Prince, and lanky Jan, the Dutch Secretary, and my friend Sybil with her straight black hair and her flirtatious dark blue eyes? How we enjoyed the yellow wine, and gobbled our sandwiches under the trees and told naughty stories and sang lively songs. And on the way back wandered down that lovely avenue of ilexes hand in hand!
Checkers wishes me to say he would give all his old boots to see you.
Aunt wants me to thank you for the photograph you sent her, ahem!
Please do not get spoiled if I add that I think you are very good-looking.
A. D. TO POLLY
(_Telegram_)[3]
_Rome, April._
I am coming to brave the wrath of one little siren tomorrow.
[3] These and succeeding telegrams and cables must have been transmitted by telephone and jotted down since I found none on the regulation blanks. I. A.
POLLY TO A. D.
_Sorrento, April._
You have only just this minute gone. I wonder if you are thinking of me--I don't believe you are. I shall treasure the pretty gold pen you gave me, to write you with. I am christening it now. Aunt calls me Pliny--she says I write so much that she is sure I indite my letters from the bath.
Will you hear my lesson? Although I have not been out of school very long I find I have forgotten a lot and I have really enjoyed reading about the very early days of Rome, of the Etruscan lords, the raids of the Sabines and the Celts, and the sack of Rome by the Gauls, the starting of the republic with the plebs and patricians, about Hannibal, the Punic wars, and the Macedonian wars, and all kinds of wars.
Checkers was tickled to death with my anonymous letter signed ”Brown Eyes.” He didn't say a word, but has smiled ever since receiving it.
All women, he declares, are devils. I notice, however, like the sailors, he discovers a pretty girl in every port. He's as fickle, looking this way and that, as a blade of gra.s.s in a high wind. I just wrote some more nonsense, supposed to be from an Italian girl who had seen him on the street and had fallen in love with the handsome American boy. I wish he would fall in love with Sybil, however, but they are such good friends that I do not so far see a glimmer of hope.
Now I am going to bed, but instead of dreaming of something pleasant, for instance of you, I shall be wide awake and my head buzzing with history and dates,--Goths taking the city of Florence,--where we go tomorrow,--the visit of Charlemagne and the story of the Countess Mathilde who ruled for over forty years, of endless feuds and battles and Guelphs and Ghibellines of long ago. Now perhaps I can go to sleep, having written you all this, and if you don't remember your history, you had better read it up.
As one of Checkers' numerous girls once declared, ”You are so fascinating I can't stop I writing!” This must be my case for here is a very long letter. I wish we could stop in Rome on the way north, but shall expect you for over Sunday in Florence.
A. D. TO POLLY
_Rome, May._
I feel lost and strange and don't know what to do without you. Only yesterday we were driving together in Florence across the river, up the hillside, to that little church high above the valley where we had our photographs taken together beneath the gnarled cypress. Then we came rattling down the zigzag roadway, past the fruit trees in blossom, and had tea and chocolate and beer, each according to his taste, at the pastry cook's, and then went back to the hotel and stood on the little balcony, looking over the gleaming river Arno, and beyond to the setting sun.